One of the reasons I love this industry is that it’s so easy to level the playing field. If we want to get more gigs or compete with speakers who have been around for decades, it doesn’t take a better talk. Or a bestselling book. Or a massive social media following.
All it takes is persistence. Anthony Iannarino sums this up well when he talks about acquiring new clients:
“Prospecting is a campaign, not an event.” Because so few speakers are taking the time to be persistent – meaning campaigning prospects, it’s a massive opportunity for those of us willing to do it.
(Interested in more successful sales campaigns and more speaking sales? Then you’re going to want to sign up for our next FREE Masterclass. Register HERE)
(Interested in more successful sales campaigns and more speaking sales? Then you’re going to want to sign up for our next FREE Masterclass. Register HERE)
It may take years to engage a decision maker in a conversation, let alone have them seriously consider a proposal, but the alternative is waiting for the phone to ring and that’s not a sound strategy. Campaigns like the kind Anthony references can last years, and that means being smart about how we’re persistent.
There are three areas we’ve learned to focus on when systemizing persistence, and hopefully they help you be more persistent in 2021:
1. Method
Because campaigns can last months or years, we learned it’s imperative to change up the ways we communicate between one touch and the next. With all the communication mediums available to us today, there’s no excuse to rely on just email or social media messaging. Today, we incorporate every method of communication we can across every medium our prospects communicate on: Phone, email, social media, direct mail, and we switch up whether we’re sending text or video from one touch to the next.
Because campaigns can last months or years, we learned it’s imperative to change up the ways we communicate between one touch and the next. With all the communication mediums available to us today, there’s no excuse to rely on just email or social media messaging. Today, we incorporate every method of communication we can across every medium our prospects communicate on: Phone, email, social media, direct mail, and we switch up whether we’re sending text or video from one touch to the next.
2. Message
We also had to learn to ensure the messages we reach out with were prospect-focused, not speaker-focused. No conference planner in the world cares about our life stories. What they do care about is how that life story can help their audience. When planning messages these days, we ensure that each message adds value to our prospect’s professional and/or personal lives. That way, we’re seen as a value-add and not simply trying to get paid.
We also had to learn to ensure the messages we reach out with were prospect-focused, not speaker-focused. No conference planner in the world cares about our life stories. What they do care about is how that life story can help their audience. When planning messages these days, we ensure that each message adds value to our prospect’s professional and/or personal lives. That way, we’re seen as a value-add and not simply trying to get paid.
3. Movement
Not every conversation will generate a proposal, paycheck or get us onto a stage. Because our buyers are often limited by budget cycles and purchase windows for their events, we need to ensure we are setting goals in our conversations so that each prospect is closer to a sale than they were before we spoke, even if they can’t buy from us today. These objectives can be as simple as learning about how they select speakers, getting a budget range for upcoming events, and especially finding out when they’re planning on selecting speakers for their next event.
Not every conversation will generate a proposal, paycheck or get us onto a stage. Because our buyers are often limited by budget cycles and purchase windows for their events, we need to ensure we are setting goals in our conversations so that each prospect is closer to a sale than they were before we spoke, even if they can’t buy from us today. These objectives can be as simple as learning about how they select speakers, getting a budget range for upcoming events, and especially finding out when they’re planning on selecting speakers for their next event.
Prospecting isn’t a skirmish – it’s a campaign. Those of us who put time into persistence can ensure that even if we lose the sale today, we’ll still have a business tomorrow.
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